


New Office Toy

by junko



Series: 'Tails' of Zabimaru [9]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/pseuds/junko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Word is getting around the Seireitei that Ukitake has a shiny new office toy and Zaraki wants one of his own...</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Office Toy

Inuzuri instincts already had Renji awake, out of bed, and looking for a weapon by the time the door was kicked in. Unfortunately, the only thing in his hand was the book of regulations he’d fallen asleep reading. Still, it was thick enough that the heavy paper might shield against zanpaktō, provided the attacker’s intent was weak. He jumped on to his bed, and watched the entrance.

“Ha!” said a vaguely familiar voice from beyond the darkened threshold, “Look at the scrappy, little Inuzuri pup. He thinks he’s going to fight you, Taicho!”

Into his closet-sized bedroom strode the largest most frightening man Renji had ever seen in his life. He was nearly seven feet tall -- an impression made larger by his hair, which was pulled up into sharp, bell-topped spikes, like some kind of twisted crown. He wore the uniform of a shinigami and a captain’s haori, but the edges of the white coat were ragged and torn. His reistsu filled the room, crushing the air from Renji’s lungs. More horrible, though was the captain’s naked zanpaktō; it howled, screaming for Renji’s blood… any blood.

“This is a raiding party and you’re my prize,” the giant man said calmly, striding over as though to grab Renji. “I want my own office boy, and that selfish Ukitake princess refuses to share.”

 

#

Renji tried to resist, of course. It was just as instinctual as the impulse that woke him. But, the altercation was stupid short and utterly humiliating--especially given that the captain and his crew laughed at him like they thought his attempts at resistance were cute or something.

Never in Renji’s life had he been carried like this before, either, with his ass in the air, slung over the captain’s wide shoulder like a sack of rice. But, he wasn’t going quietly.

Well, honestly, Renji had decided that the captain meant it when he explained that if he yelled too much that he’d knock him senseless. A concussion was something Renji really didn’t want, especially since this crazy captain didn’t seem like the sort who would worry overmuch about brain damage. So, despite his instincts to gather a pack by calling for help, Renji kept the actual noises to a minimum of growling.

However, he fought the whole way. He’d kicked a few times, but the captain put an end to that with a very demeaning smack on the butt and an adjustment on how he held Renji’s legs. At least Renji had one of those hair spikes curled in his fist and his teeth sunk deeply into the nearest available flesh.

It didn’t matter to Renji that this demon captain clearly felt none of it; it was the principle of the matter. With his free hand, he made rude gestures at the rest of the captain’s men—especially Ikkaku, whom Renji finally recognized once they were in the street and under the moonlight.

Renji gathered they’d arrived at their destination when he saw a whole group of soldiers gathered at the entrance to a division barracks. They burst into cheers and hollers at the sight of their triumphant returning warriors. Renji had a whole new group of people to flip off, which he did with a great deal of relish, which only seemed to make them roar with laughter and applaud louder.

Apparently, the Gotei 13 had a division comprised entirely of madmen.

He was dumped into the middle of a dusty practice yard. To add to the sense of insanity, a tiny little pink-haired girl came skipping through the legs of the soldiers to bring him a bouquet of flowers. In his stunned surprise, he took them. They looked like they’d been ripped from someone’s garden as the roots dripped dirt.

She kissed his cheeks and said, “Welcome to the Eleventh, Office Boy!”

The crowd started chanting, “Toilet paper! Toilet paper!”

The captain loomed over Renji again, and, it took all Renji’s stamina not to cringe or scurry away in fear. “Here’s the thing,” the captain said. “We’re not big readers or writers over here, you understand? We need someone to get us toilet paper through the proper channels, because we’ve hit every division now and they’ve started locking their fucking supplies down using kidō. And, that damn magic is the one thing I can’t break. But the real last straw was those evil freaks over at Twelve. They started coating the toilet paper we were stealing with weird, experimental substances and Yumichika’s still crying over the purple fur that sprouted all over his ass.”

Renji tried not to snicker at that thought, but luckily the piercing squint the captain pinned him under was icy enough to stop any chuckle dead in his throat.

“Then Ikkaku comes back last Monday and tells me that Thirteen has their very own Academy paperwork hound. The way I have it figured Ukitake’s already got himself a proper adjutant, so what the fuck do they need you for? When I went there all nice and asked if he’d be willing to share his shiny new office toy, he muttered something about my crew not being a good influence on the youth of today. Well, fuck him. You’re mine now, understand?”

Renji nodded. Just going along until you could escape was what you did with the mentally unbalanced murderous gangsters in Inuzuri, so it’s what he did now.

“We need toilet paper. Bad,” the captain said again. “Make that happen.”

Renji sat in the middle of the yard holding the flowers for a long moment before it occurred to him that the captain was waiting on something from him. “You mean… now?”

“Yeah, Office Toy, now.”

The crowd started their chant again.

“Where do you keep your requisition forms?” Renji asked, starting to pick himself up off the ground. It must be two o’clock in the morning. Hopefully these guys understood he couldn’t just make their supplies appear overnight. When the captain scowled at him like he had no idea what Renji was saying, he tried, “Or, do you have an office, like one where mail is delivered?”

The captain scanned the crowd, “Oi, Yumichika, where does the mail go?”

“Usually in the bin,” Yumichika shouted back. The crowd laughed at that and gave three cheers, but Yumichika stepped out from the gathered throng and added, “But I bet I know what he’s talking about.”

“Good. You keep the new toy shiny,” the captain said to Yumichika, and then wagged an admonishing finger at the rest of his soldiers, “Nobody breaks him until we got what we need, understand? Oi, that means you, Ikkaku. He stays sober until we got our stuff. Then you can play with him, alright?”

“Yes, sir!”

 

#

If Renji thought the Thirteenth was behind on paperwork, the Eleventh was orders of magnitude worse. Apparently, they had a kind of shed that served as a dumping ground for all their correspondence, forms and other business. It looked like no one had touched it in decades.

 _No, strike that_ , Renji said, picking up a piece of paper from the pile that had a smiley face painted on it and another which had been turned into an origami hat, _the forms were clearly viewed as art supplies._

“So,” Yumichika said, leaning a narrow hip on the doorway. “What do you need to get started, little toy?”

“Was this your idea?” Renji snarled. “I know you don’t like me, but, kidnapping? Seriously?”

“Oh, no, no,” Yumichika said, shaking his head and raising a thin boned finger, “Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t _dislike_ you; I hate you. The last thing I want is for you to be within fifty feet of my division. This lovely plan was cooked up by Ikkaku and Kenpachi. I, my dear toy, worked like hell to talk them out of it.”

“But you can’t read, can you?”

Yumichika straightened up and his hand dropped to the grip of his zanpaktō. “I’ll have you know, I can.”

Renji figured he was close enough to tackle the shorter guy if he actually drew his weapon, so he asked, “So why aren’t you the one doing this work?”

Yumichika sniffed. “Writing was never a skill I thought to acquire.”

Renji nodded. Of the two of them, writing was the hardest to master. He still wasn’t great at it. He looked around at all this stuff, wondering if he had any chance of finding what he needed in it. “Why didn’t you guys just ask me last weekend? I would have come down to help out on my time off.”

“You forget. I wanted us to have nothing to do with you.”

“And how’d that work out for you? Looks like you and me are stuck together now.”

 

#

By mid-morning, Renji had requisitions for toilet paper, soap, hairbrushes, and a dozen other toiletry sundries ready to be stamped by Kenpachi’s seal and sent to the First.

By the time Ukitake and Kaien showed up to rescue him, he’d started in on several other important necessities, including restocking the pantry and the medical supply cabinet. “Listen,” Renji said to the officer who came to breathlessly report Ukitake’s arrival to Yumichika, “Have the captain delay them until noon and I can get you guys replacement practice swords, a regular rotation on the cleaning crew’s schedule, and a maintenance contract for the yard.”

“Yes, sir!” the officer said cheerfully as he ran off.

“‘Sir’?” Yumichika purred sardonically. “That must feel nice, cadet.”

“‘Cadet’?” Renji repeated in the same tone, “I must be moving up in your estimation too. For the last ten hours it’s been variations on toy.”

“You’re taking care of us,” Yumichika noted.

Renji nodded, not looking up from his work. “Before they pull me out of here, you and me have to put our heads together. How you going to get the stuff that needs regular attention to me without anyone in the Thirteenth finding out?”

 

#

Ukitake apologized continually while Kaien swore up a blue streak. They made Renji stop off at the Fourth to be checked over, despite his insistence that he’d only suffered minor cuts and bruises.

“A fucking brute,” Kaien was saying, leaning on the window sill while the healer wrapped up a small cut on Renji’s arm. “That’s what Zaraki is: a mindless goddamn brute.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Renji said. “I disagree. He’s trying to take care of his people the best he can. If I may ask: why didn’t someone volunteer to take on their paperwork, or teach one them how to do it? You all took the trouble to cast protection magic over your stuff so he couldn’t get it, but not one soul offered to help?”

“Watch yourself, kid. You think no one did? Anyway, that Kenpachi is a crazy motherfucker who’s too proud to ask. Instead, he just knocks people over and takes their stuff. It doesn’t exactly engender goodwill.”

“Ah,” Renji said, thinking that maybe Kaien might be right. Still, it wasn't like he couldn't understand the instinct, and Kenpachi came from further out from Inuzuri. It was entirely possible the captain didn’t know how to ask for help, or didn’t trust he’d get it if he did.

 

#

The rest of the summer, Renji met Ikkaku, Yumichika or, more often, both of them at a bar halfway between the Thirteenth and the Eleventh. While sharing a few drinks, they’d slip packages back and forth under the table, like some kind of shady mafia dealers in paperwork.

Yumichika was the one, at the end, who gave Renji a big, tearful hug and said they’d miss him, and not just for all he’d done for the Eleventh. Ikkaku just cuffed him on the side of the head and told him to be good and hurry up and graduate, so he could take Renji drinking properly.

If either Ukitake or Kaien was ever the wiser, they never said. Kyōraku, however, gave him a broad wink, and pulled him aside to say, “You’ve made some important friends, Mr. Renji. I think, should you ever need them, they’ve got your back.”

Renji nodded, but he’d never presume. He’d offered what he had with no strings, no expectations. It had been an important summer lesson for him, learning that he didn’t have to fall back on the old Inuzuri economics of barter and trade, always making sure to get equal or more than what you gave. He could _share_ his talents, no cost, no price, and he didn’t end up shafted or screwed. In fact, it felt kind of good knowing he’d done someone a good turn.

Though, if he had to have an ally, it wouldn’t suck if it were Kenpachi Zaraki.

**Author's Note:**

> So much of this is just silly and wrong, yet I couldn't help myself. I promise to return to serious Renji/Zabimaru soon!


End file.
